About Rockdale Village

Winner! Rockdale Village won ‘Best Large Business’ at the 2025 Sevenoaks Business Awards…

What we offer...

Founded over 75 years ago through fundraising from the local community, Rockdale Village was – and is – run with benevolence at heart.

To find out more about our founder, Beatrice Wilson, her remarkable personal story and the history of Rockdale please click here.

Rockdale Village provides residences and care for a well-lived retirement, with care when you need it and your independence when you don’t.  Whatever your accommodation needs, we can help you through our 180 apartments for independent living and our 50-bed nursing and care home.

Beatrice Wilson Popup

Rockdale Village has two sites, one on either side of Sevenoaks High Street. Our main location is Rockdale Road, tucked just behind The Stag cinema and theatre. Our second location, Akehurst Lane, is in a private road just behind Waitrose and backs onto the historic deer park of the National Trust’s Knole House. Rockdale’s sites are just a short, five-minute walk apart, with all residences no more than a short stroll to the cafes and shops of Sevenoaks.

At Rockdale Village we have apartments to rent or buy, and on-site support, maintenance and personal home care teams to help you enjoy your retirement trouble-free. Our teams enable you to retain your independence for as long as you feel comfortable.

And if the time comes and you need a bit more help we have Rockdale House, our welcoming and friendly nursing and residential care home in the heart of the village. You can live at Rockdale House permanently or stay for a short respite or recovery break. But just as importantly as providing you with a happy home, a move to Rockdale Village brings you a real sense of community with all the comforts and friendships of village life.

What makes Rockdale Village different to any other retirement facility?

Goodness, where to start…!

Our friendliness…?

All our staff, from our carers to our cooks to our gardeners, are handpicked for their kindness and empathy. In fact, Rockdale Village is run with kindness at its core.

Our small-is-beautiful stature…?

Unlike other retirement villages and care homes, Rockdale isn’t part of a faceless, corporate chain. We’re unique; independent, not-for-profit and stand-alone. To us, this isn’t business… it’s personal. And you are never a ‘client’ or a number.

Our village community…?

Nobody at Rockdale Village needs to be lonely. Regular checks from our Support team mean no-one is forgotten, and new residents always receive a warm welcome. And with daily activities including teas, speakers, classes, clubs, celebrations and trips there’s always plenty to do (if you wish to) and plenty of like-minded neighbours to do it all with. In fact, our residents say their lives don’t shrink when they come to Rockdale Village – they blossom!

The peace of mind we give you…?

At Rockdale House, our residential and nursing care home, our friendly team is always on-hand. But it may surprise you that our support workers are here for our independent-living residents 24- hours a day too (yes, even at Christmas!). Plus you can rest assured that all our carers, home-helps, gardeners and maintenance staff are all trusted Rockdale Village staff.

Our flexibility…?

Where else can you pick from apartments to rent or buy, receive our trusted personalised domiciliary care if you choose to, and have the option of both residential and nursing care for respite and permanent stays…? And it’s all within the same grounds!

Our ability to adapt with you…?

Perhaps best of all is the knowledge that you can move to Rockdale Village knowing you won’t need to worry about the future. We can remain home to you even if your needs change over time. If or when you choose to, you can move from our independent-living apartments to our care home without the hassle of huge upheaval or losing your friends and neighbours.

Or is it simply our heritage…?

Rockdale Village has been here, serving our local community for over 75 years. Loved and trusted by locals, we’ve even cared for several generations of the same families. We’re as much a part of Sevenoaks as the town’s famous oaks!

To see Rockdale Village’s policies, business plans and reports please visit the link at the bottom of the page.

Who runs Rockdale Village?

We are a one-off, independent, not-for-profit business serving the Sevenoaks community. We have around 120 staff providing 24-hour care and support.

Find out more

Beatrice Wilson

Rockdale was founded in 1948 by Beatrice Wilson, a remarkable, forward-thinking and community-minded physiotherapist.

Born and raised in Chislehurst, Kent, the young Beatrice served as a nurse with the Red Cross during WWI, before training to become one of the first women in the new medical profession of physiotherapy. Initially practicing in Portsmouth, London’s East End and the Anglo-American Hospital in Rome, she returned to Kent in the 1930’s, setting up ‘The Clinic’ treatment rooms in a hut in her garden on Granville Road before moving to a purpose-built premises in South Park. The Clinc became well known for its innovative work. In 1938 it received a royal visit by Queen Mary, stopping traffic and drawing crowds of over 2000 people.

Our founder, Beatrice Wilson

Miss Leach, our first resident

Who was Beatrice Wilson

A Sevenoaks Chronicle news article reported that, during WWII, Beatrice got a lift from a man in Knockholt all the way to Damascus to treat a wounded soldier. Whether this is true is not known. Certainly, she served as Command Adviser in Physiotherapy to the Middle Eastern Forces in Palestine as part of the Royal Army Medical Corps and was also attached to the Royal Scots Guards. She may also have worked in Cairo with the Queen Alexandria Royal Nursing Corps. It is not clear when she returned to England, but she treated Winston Churchill at Chartwell during this period and was awarded the Africa Star medal.

Once the war was over Beatrice continued her work in Sevenoaks. An elected member of the Council of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, she commanded huge professional respect. She was also an incredible local servant, working as an adviser to Sevenoaks Orthopedic Clinic and Holmesdale Hospital (which later became Sevenoaks Hospital). But Beatrice harboured a greater mission – to provide an affordable place of home for older residents with varying needs, offering everything from supported independence to a more substantial degree of care.

Thanks to Beatrice’s tireless fundraising (with help from the Sevenoaks Soroptomists, of which she was a founding member), she established the Sevenoaks & District Old People’s Housing Association in 1948, later named ‘The Rockdale Housing Association’.

Rockdale has occupied its current site since 1951, when Beatrice bought Laurie House and its accompanying land from the Laurie family*. Since then we have added more accommodation buildings to our site, including The Pleasaunce (1959), Rockdale Gardens (1968), Beatrice Wilson (1985) and Stable Court (1992), as well as Summerbank, an additional ‘new’ Laurie House, and Rockdale House, our purpose-built nursing and residential care home, all in 2013. We also acquired a second site, ‘Akehurst Lane’, where we built Webbs Meadow in 1987 and Constant Meadow in 2002. Today, Rockdale Village provides home and community to well over 200 residents.

Although Beatrice died, aged 84, in 1980, we continue to uphold her principles and values. Rockdale Village remains not-for-profit.

* Laurie House’s previous owner was Sir John Dawson, a baronet who had served as the Mayor of London during the Blitz.